Movies

#140RVW

EXACTLY as good as you remember it being. Probably more affecting if like me, you were close to the characters’ age when you first saw it…

What’s more:

A mostly faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s novella “The Body”, Stand By Me  was a sleeper hit when it came out in 1986. They were fortunate to even get the movie made, as it had financing trouble. No one expected it to be a success. What were people not seeing in this picture? A coming of age movie based on a story by the most popular author alive? How could this NOT have been a hit?

Well, hindsight and all that. The fact is that Rob Reiner hadn’t yet become a bankable director and while all of these child actors were full of promise, many careers don’t pan out. In truth, the casting of Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell was inspired and is almost entirely the reason the film became an instant classic.

The movie is set in 1959, but it would be engaging set at just about any time. The nostalgia is great and the setting certainly makes the story work very well, but the core issues of friendship, growing up, finding your place, grief, loss – these are what make this film so engaging and keep it fresh to people of any age or background.

Enough cannot be said about the dialogue. King is a great writer in large part because he creates believable dialogue for real people, and screenwriters Raynold Gideon & Bruce A. Evans wisely import entire exchanges from the book even as they add their own touches in the same spirit.  The banter between the boys on this trip will be instantly familiar to most people, enough so that it seems as if the writers were listening in on your conversations as you wandered around town with your friends.

Occasionally the exchanges can seem a bit adult, the insights from characters Chris Chambers and Gordie Lachance rather sophisticated. But the acting by River Phoenix & Wil Wheaton, respectively, sells it. Some kids are wise beyond their years, and some actors possess talents surpassing their experience. Feldman and O’Connell (in his first role) are really very good, as well, but it is no slander to say that they are bit players next to Phoenix & Wheaton.

Interesting choice to move the story (and filming) from Castle Rock, Maine to Oregon. The scenery is great and the photography is very good, if a bit too soft for me. It’s so intentionally made to seem nostalgic and timeless that it’s a little over-the-top, but certainly achieves the look they were going for.

Reiner really did a marvelous job; this is a tremendous film.

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Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Wil Wheaton Gordie Lachance, River Phoenix Chris Chambers, Corey Feldman Teddy Duchamp, Jerry O’Connell Vern Tessio
Rating	R
Release Date	Fri 08 Aug 1986 UTC
Director	Rob Reiner
Genres	Adventure, Drama
Plot	After the death of a friend, a writer recounts a boyhood journey to find the body of a missing boy.
Poster
Runtime	89
Tagline	For some, it’s the last real taste of innocence, and the first real taste of life. But for everyone, it’s the time that memories are made of.
Writers	Stephen King (novel), Raynold Gideon (screenplay) …
Year	1986

#140RVW

The only thing surprising about this movie is it hasn’t been made before now. It’s such an amazing & inspirational story that tells itself.

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The thing about inspirational sports movies is that if they are made well it doesn’t matter that you know the outcome, doesn’t matter that they are full of clichés. Miracle is such a case.

It hits all the marks, does everything you expect, yet is still good stuff because, hey, the story is fantastic.

Quick thoughts:

• Kurt Russell has a really good Minnesotan accent. Or at least what I think of as Minnesotan…
• Good young actors and the hockey action is perfection. So well executed.
• Interesting choice to retain the original commentary by Al Michaels & Ken Dryden. It works quite well, as the Michaels is a good play by play man and does well in the historic moment.
• The ending voiceover by Russell is totally unneccesary and pushes the schmaltz meter into the red, where it surprisingly really hasn’t been for most of the movie. The story is enough, you don’t need to tell us why it was important – we know.
• The end credits have a nice dedication to Herb Brooks, who died before the film was completed, and in a nice touch list what the players are doing now.

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Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Kurt Russell Herb Brooks, Patricia Clarkson Patti Brooks, Nathan West Rob McClanahan, Noah Emmerich Craig Patrick
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 06 Feb 2004 UTC
Director	Gavin O’Connor
Genres	Drama, Family, History, Sport
Plot	Miracle tells the true story of Herb Brooks (Russell), the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Russian squad.
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Runtime	135
Tagline	What America needed was a miracle. What it got was a hockey game.
Writers	Eric Guggenheim (written by)
Year	2004

#140RVW

Less a movie than a film school exercise as Steve Martin remixes old noir films with even older one-liners. Still works more often than not.

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On paper this really shouldn’t work; inserting yourself into a bunch of old movies and making smart ass remarks. It would be sort of like having a bunch of guys sitting in the audience and heckling a movie and just showing the backs of their heads…wait a second…

But it does work, because the year is 1982 and Steve Martin is about the funniest person on the planet. Some of the jokes work very well, my favorite being a running gag scolding Bogart for not wearing a tie. Many others are just rote smarmy responses that simply advance the story. Actually, it’s probably true to say that while this exercise in remixing old films works, it isn’t funny so much as irreverent.

The concept of mashing up old films into a new film is intriguing, though. I’m sure someone will make (and probably already has) a truly unique project this way, though it will probably never see the light of day for rights reasons…

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Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Steve Martin Rigby Reardon, Rachel Ward Juliet Forrest, Alan Ladd The Exterminator (archive footage), Carl Reiner Field Marshall VonKluck
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 21 May 1982 UTC
Director	Carl Reiner
Genres	Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Plot	Film noir parody with a detective uncovering a sinister plot. Characters from real noirs appear as scenes from various films are intercut.
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Runtime	88
Tagline	Laugh… or I’ll blow your lips off!
Writers	Carl Reiner (written by) &, George Gipe (written by) …
Year	1982

#140RVW

Absolute riot. So much fun. Park & Wright can do little wrong. Works pretty well as sci-fi & as comedy, but mostly as story about friends…

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As the third film in the Cornetto Trilogy (with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), The World’s End comes with heavy expectations, which it absolutely fulfills. Producer Nira Park & director Edgar Wright get the band back together and this thing just plays…

The perpetually funny Simon Pegg & Nick Frost are joined this time by a great supporting cast featuring Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, Rosamund Pike and NVB fave Martin Freeman. These actors gel perfectly and completely sell their role as old friends.

At the insistence of Pegg’s ne’er do well addict Gary King, the old gang gets together in their old hometown to complete a pub crawl down the “Golden Mile” of 12 pubs that they failed to master as teenagers. The first half of the film is packed with great comedy and moments as they realize that of course you can’t go home again.

And if it had stopped there, it would have been quite a good movie. They could have left it at that and no one would have cause for complaint. But the whole thing gets more sublime as this theme that nothing stays the same becomes more explicit with the discovery that their hometown has in fact been invaded by body snatching aliens. Brilliant! It gets completely ridiculous, and in all the right ways.

The World’s End is a blast and never stops being funny, even with a slightly long for comedy 109 minute run-time. The movie feels like a night out with your friends, and makes me want to get the band back together to find our own Golden Mile and “see this through to the bitter end. Or… lager end.” Let’s Boo-Boo…

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Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Simon Pegg Gary King, Nick Frost Andy Knightley, Martin Freeman Oliver Chamberlain, Rosamund Pike Sam Chamberlain
Rating	R
Release Date	Fri 23 Aug 2013 UTC
Director	Edgar Wright
Genres	Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Plot	Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind’s only hope for survival.
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Runtime	109
Tagline	Good food. Fine ales. Total Annihilation.
Writers	Simon Pegg (written by) &, Edgar Wright (written by)
Year	2013